


if david joined goliath

by smarky



Category: Professional Wrestling, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: Attraction, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kayfabe Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-06 01:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18840529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarky/pseuds/smarky
Summary: Tomorrow is another day. But at the same time, tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone.





	if david joined goliath

 

They hadn’t said it when they talked with the designer about what they wanted, but Sho knew that he and Yoh had been thinking the same thing about their new gear: it was, somehow, like an artifact brought back in time, perfectly preserved from their early days together and now living in the present. 

 

And now they had finally received the final product. 

 

Yoh was already stripping off his shirt. “Let’s try them on now.” 

 

Even after years of living with him, Sho was still stunned by the casual confidence in how Yoh moved, how easily he bared his skin, and how it never made Sho anything but dazed no matter how silly Yoh was acting. He looked away, staring at the wall and fingering his shirt, debating taking it off as Yoh noisily changed his clothes behind him. It was very cold. He already had goosebumps. 

 

Sho glanced at the ground, and caught a glimpse of Yoh’s bare thigh under the tassels of his trunks. 

 

“I want to see how good we look together, come on! There’s no time to waste,” said Yoh, now fully in his gear and tugging at Sho. 

 

Sho huffed and lifted his shirt over his head, partly to keep from staring at how perfectly the fabric of the trunks clung to Yoh’s hips. It was hard for anyone not to admire the work Yoh put in to sculpt his body. 

 

Yoh sat down to check notifications on his phone. Sho took the opportunity to quickly shimmy off his pants and pull on his gear, fumbling a few times in the process. 

 

Yoh put his phone away after Sho finished. He trailed his eyes, and then his hands up Sho’s body, smoothing out the lines of his trunks. 

 

“You know, if you dyed your hair, you would look just like your younger self from a few years ago.” 

 

“So, good?”

 

Yoh grinned. “Very good.” 

 

Sho ended up getting his hair dyed. It truly wasn’t just because Yoh suggested it. Sho thought it would look nice. He’d had the urge to change it up for a while. 

 

 

 

That gear brought up old memories for Sho, ones he hadn’t thought about for a while. It was all too easy to get nostalgic. Back in the day, there had been no rules.

 

Well, that wasn’t quite true. There had been plenty of rules, and the New Japan dojo was a strict place to live. But the expectations there were nothing like the ones Sho had now. He and Yoh could roughhouse, be physically affectionate, share a blanket, even clothes, and no one batted an eye. On excursion, they had even more freedom, and it felt so right, like heaven wasn’t just a word. 

 

That all changed when they entered the roster. Now it was easy to get strange and disapproving looks, to be told to be more serious and act their age. Sho quickly adjusted to the new environment. This was what he needed to do to succeed. It wasn’t like he and Yoh weren’t able to still do some of the same things together. Yoh still walked around shirtless all the time! And as a team, they were stronger than ever. 

 

 

 

It had started out so natural and easy for them when they had first met in their tryouts. 

 

Actually, Sho liked to think that as soon as he saw Yoh, he knew that this was going to be his tag partner. They worked together so seamlessly, some people said it was as if they were born for each other. Even their names sounded similar. Sho and Yohei, always a pair, found together or not at all. 

 

Yes, it was destiny. Every time since the first time Sho met him, Sho looked at Yoh and felt this inexplicable warmth. 

 

It was the desire to team with him, the recognition that this was someone who just clicked. 

 

It was looking at Yoh’s smile, slightly different when it was directed towards Sho, and knowing this was inevitable. 

 

 

 

Roppongi 3K came back together a few days before the beginning of Super Juniors, as expected. They had barely seen each other for a month, as each of them entered into an intense final bout of training. Sho caught glimpses of where Yoh and Rocky were on social media, but he tried not to look too hard. 

 

“Well how have you been?” Yoh was stretched out against the table. His shirt rode up to expose a hint of stomach. 

 

Sho told him all about what he’d been doing-- all the BJJ, the jiu-jitsu. He was proud of how much progress he had made in such a short time. No one could say he was just a power wrestler now. Rocky, listening on, nodded in approval and clapped him on the shoulder. 

 

“Wow,” said Yoh. “I guess I have some catching up to do. More strength training, probably.”

 

“What do you mean?” Surely Yoh had been training just as hard as him while they were separate. That they had been doing different things was what made it so thrilling. It was a shame Sho wasn't guaranteed to experience the new things Yoh had to offer, what with them being placed in opposite blocks. 

 

“Well, if you’ve been learning all these technical wrestling skills, I’ll need to work on my power. Otherwise, the balance of the team will be broken once we get back together,” Yoh said lightly. 

 

“What, afraid I’ll pull ahead of you? That's unlikely.” And that wasn't how teams worked either. They didn't need to be stuck in delineated roles to work well together. 

 

“I suppose it's just my pride.” Yoh’s smile tightened. “I have to have some use… or I’ll be looking pretty lame. If you can do everything I can do...”

 

Some use? Sho was incredulous. He couldn’t do half the things that Yoh could. 

 

Luckily, this was when Rocky cut in. 

 

“Neither of you are lame! You’re the goddamn best, and youre so, so cool! Appreciate how your unique talents complement each other! It may not be apparent at first, but--” 

 

Quietly, Sho appreciated Rocky’s rants. It was much easier to support his sentiments than try to express those same things on his own. Yoh insisted he had just been joking, but was he? It was better to make sure and reaffirm him anyway. 

 

 

 

Actually, they had been told that they complemented each other for a long time, and not just by Rocky. It was true, easy to see if Sho looked just a little. Nor was it just about their skills as wrestlers-- it was their personalities, too. 

 

Sho had first truly known that when they had been working together in a muscle cafe, where they dressed in skimpy outfits and acted like dream gentleman to please their customers. Tanahashi had put them up to it. They were Young Lions. It was fun sometimes. 

 

They were almost like a team there in the cafe. Sho was better at getting the shyer customers to feel comfortable and open up about what they wanted, and remembered every little detail of the plans. Yoh easily made them laugh and knew just the right thing to say to get them to buy more, and he was always ready to improvise. He was quicker than Sho to be affectionate with customers, and much more liable to throw himself in Sho’s arms to make them blush. Sho knew how to dance with them, and how to pepper details about the regulars into their conversations to make them feel loved. 

 

The two of them shared secret teases-- a slap on the chest, a brush of hands, and more-- and whispered little jokes to each other to get through the day. Sho delighted in ruining Yoh’s polished expressions. Customers always said Yoh looked like a prince, but Sho brought Yoh back down to their worldly level. 

 

 

 

There was one night at the muscle cafe that Sho would never forget. 

 

They had just finished closing up shop. He and Yoh went down the darkened street on their way home, now in their casual clothes but with hair still slicked back with gel. They bumped each other as they walked and giggled. 

 

A few obviously drunk women passed them. Sho thought nothing of it. 

 

Then a stranger’s hand was on his arm, pulling him towards them, and he spun around, heart pounding irregularly. 

 

“You’re Sho from the cafe a few blocks up, aren’t you!” 

 

There was no use denying it. He was fully illuminated by the lights in the shops around him. Yoh shifted to make eye contact with him, as if asking what he wanted to do. 

 

“Oh my god, Yohei! Please stay and talk with us!” said another one of the women, rushing up to them. The others hung back, perhaps knowing that approaching the servers like this in public was egregiously rude. 

 

It was a difficult situation. If they ran, or appeared abrasive to the women, they could lose customers or even their jobs, even though they were in the right. And they probably had to get used to this-- when they were famous wrestlers, there would be lots of fans to meet in public, though that was hardly the same as this. Sho was about ready to run anyway, when Yoh grabbed his hand. 

 

Naturally, the first woman noticed and began going on about how they were so cute, if only they would do more for her right then she would pay them, she just wanted to watch, she just had this little fantasy. 5000 yen for them to kiss. They were fairly poor at that point. It would be thoughtless to refuse. 

 

“Let’s just do it and get out of here,” Yoh whispered. “I don’t mind, it doesn’t mean anything. But if it’s too weird for you I’ll just politely refuse and pose for them or something.” 

 

Sho wanted to get a nice birthday gift for Yoh that year. It wasn’t a big deal, even if he felt nauseous, because this was just for money. 

 

So Sho had his first kiss since childhood on the street while strange women watched and gasped. He was kissing Yoh. Yoh’s hand curled in his hair, and the women laughed behind them as Yoh lifted one leg like he was in a movie. Sho couldn’t even really feel the kiss, even though this was something he had imagined drunk before. 

 

Their eyes circled around Sho, taking in the performance. He hated this. He couldn’t separate himself out this much, make his real self poured into an action done on demand for others. This was a mockery of his relationship with Yoh transformed into a product. 

 

But wasn’t that what a wrestler was born to do? Yoh wasn’t a private life Sho could hide away. 

 

Sho let go, lips wet and face hot. He hung back, watching Yoh touch his lips for a moment before collecting the money. 

 

If this were fiction, and one of them was a woman, it might have been sweet and romantic, a realization of possibilities that led into a relationship, a fortuitous twist of fate. But this wasn't fiction, and Sho had never liked those movies anyway. This was real life, and there was nothing romantic about being ogled by these women, all of them aroused and yet like they were about to burst into laughter at the absurdity of two men together. They may as well have been actors, for as unreal this moment felt to Sho. This was supposed to be their free time. 

 

“It doesn't mean anything,” Yoh had said. 

 

At last the women left. Yoh smiled awkwardly, apologetically, at Sho, and cracked some joke he didn't hear. That's all this was, a cruel joke. A door opened in front of him just to reveal the gaping empty space behind it. 

 

Thunder rumbled. They had to run to catch their train.

 

Tanahashi was confused about why they didn't want to work there after that, but he eventually dropped it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> can you tell what njpw fic this was stylistically inspired by? comment or tell me @axel-mania on tumblr lol 
> 
> much thanks to lucia for her suggestions and encouragement.
> 
> desc is from yohs comment after bosj 26 night 2


End file.
